Wireless data networks serve wireless user devices with mobile data communication services like internet access, voice calling, and video calling. The wireless data networks have wireless access points that exchange data over the air with wireless user devices. Two primary wireless networking technologies are Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 802.11 (WIFI). Many wireless user devices communicate over both LTE and WIFI networks. WIFI networks may be trusted or untrusted based on their identity and security features.
In some data networks, the wireless user devices use WIFI to communicate over the Internet with an enhanced Packet Data Gateway (ePDG) in the LTE core network. These wireless user devices communicate over the Internet through the LTE core network. LTE and WIFI are also integrated together in a protocol called LTE Local Area Network Aggregation (LWA). LWA uses WIFI for wireless transport between the wireless user device and the network. Thus, LWA looks like WIFI to the wireless user device. LWA couples the WIFI protocol and the LTE protocol in a shared Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer. A new technology referred to as 5th Generation New Radio (5G NR) relies on LTE signaling but uses enhanced resource block structures for user data transfers. Many new wireless user devices will be able to communicate over WIFI, LTE, LWA, and 5G NR.
The Internet Protocol (IP) is a packet-based data protocol that comprises an IP header with addressing information and an IP payload with user data. IP routers transfer IP packets from source to destination based on the IP addressing in the IP packet headers. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used with IP to ensure IP packet delivery. TCP features sequence numbers in the transmitted TCP/IP packets that must be acknowledged by the TCP receiver or the TCP transmitter will resend the TCP/IP packet. The number of TCP/IP packets that can share a single acknowledgement is called a TCP window.
TCP optimization engines are computer systems that load balance TCP/IP traffic across multiple wireless access networks. For example, a TCP optimization engine may load balance the delivery of TCP/IP packets to wireless user devices over LTE, WIFI, LWA, and 5G NR access networks. The TCP/IP engines also perform tasks like authentication, authorization, encryption, compression, and rate shaping.
The wireless user devices have TCP/IP buffers to store the TCP/IP packets. The TCP/IP buffers are typically large for high-bandwidth user applications like virtual reality and smaller for low-bandwidth applications like messaging. The TCP optimization engines transfer instructions to the wireless user devices to control the sizes of their TCP buffers and their TCP windows. The TCP optimization engines are not directly aware of the specific wireless access technology that is used by an individual wireless user device. The TCP optimization engines are not directly aware of the specific Radio Frequency (RF) measurements that are taken by an individual wireless user device. Unfortunately, the TCP optimization engines are not enhanced for a wireless environment that includes multiple different wireless access technologies.